Outpost built a Tip Jar feature that allows anyone to tip Ghost newsletter sites, which has led to some pretty sizeable donations!
Some sites make more in their virtual Tip Jar on their Ghost site and newsletter than they pay Outpost for all of our features. One site got a $10,000 donation! Outpost does not take a percentage or a fee, so you keep all the money people donate (excluding Stripe or Paypal fees).
For sites on our Luna plan, the Tip Jar runs in a page on your site, like the button below.
For sites on the Space Station plan, the Tip Jar page loads externally (since we can't modify your theme or run content inside it). Here's what that looks like:
People can donate via Stripe or Paypal, and if people are on mobile, Stripe allows people to use GooglePay or ApplePay.
People can tip as much or as little as they want, you don't need to set the amount ahead of time.
We have custom buttons that you can put in your emails, in your posts, and on your homepage. The tip jar button inherits the color from your Ghost site, though if you have familiarity with HTML/CSS, you can change the color.
Or you can just link anywhere on your site or in your emails to your Tip Jar.
For Stripe, these tips get added into your account labeled as donations, and won't affect your recurring revenue statistics.
For Paypal, it depends.
If you have a Paypal Business account and connect that, it's treated the same as Stripe, meaning Outpost can see the donation and do all the cool stuff. If you don't have or can't get a PayPal Business account, you can use a Personal PayPal account and get donations, but Outpost can't see the donations, so can't do the cool stuff.
Both Space Station and Luna plan members can use the PayPal Business connection, and we highly recommend upgrading your PayPal or getting a PayPal Business account if you can.
What's the cool stuff Outpost Does with the Tip Jar?
When people tip via Stripe or a PayPal Business Account:
- We let the donation giver send you a message
- We show the donation giver a customizable thank you message on the page
- We email the donation giver to thank them even more profusely
- We send a message to you (including the optional message from the donation giver to let you know about the donation
- If the giver is a member, we label them in Ghost as a donation giver and include details in their profile about the donation. That means you can easily send an email to people who donated previously to ask them to donate again, or export a list of donation givers for any other purpose
- We include details about the donations in your reports and keep track of donations for you over time
Like this feature? Give us a tip to try it out or simply sign up for a no credit card-required free trial! 😸
Image Credit: NASA